The present invention concerns a connection assembly for electric light rails having an internal adapter-receiving channel and electrical conducting strips. The ends of the connection assembly are provided with couplings which electrically engaged the ends of the light rails, with flexible electrical connecting wires enclosed within a mantle extending through the connection assembly and into the couplings.
In conventional connection assemblies of the type suggested in (DT-OS 24 48 041), the mantle and the electrical connecting wires which between the two couplings are contained within a folding bellows-like assembly which has an outer contour that corresponds generally to the contour of the adjacent couplings. The folding bellows merely forms a cover for the mantle, while serving to optically continue the outer contour of the adjacent couplings. As a result, the connection of the wires and the mantle to the couplings is exactly the same as the connection for open cable assemblies. To relieve the tension between the cable and attached couplings, the ends of the cable are secured to the couplings by means of clamps, as demanded by the present VDE regulations. This type assembly of electrical wires and couplings is made significantly more difficult by the provision of the folding bellows surrounding the mantle and cables.
A further disadvantage of conventional connection assemblies is that the folding bellows tends to prevent a proper positioning of the light rails when rotated relative to one another, because the folding bellows becomes irregularly distorted when submitted to torsion. Thus, in certain cases, when the assembly of adjacent light rails requires rotary misalignment, the folding bellows has to be eliminated and the wires left uncovered as a result thereof.